Myanmar builds "new" Shwedagon in jungle capital

YANGON, Nov 14 (Reuters) Myanmar's generals are building an almost life-sized replica of Yangon's gilded Shwedagon Pagoda, the country's holiest Buddhist shrine, in their new jungle capital, state media has reported.

A ground-breaking ceremony led by junta supremo Senior General Than Shwe was held on Sunday for the ''Uppatasanti Pagoda'', as the replica is named, in Nay Pyi Taw, the new command and control centre 400 km north of Yangon.

Radio, television and newspapers yesterday gave wide coverage of the traditional Buddhist ceremony conducted by yellow-robed monks and attended by other top generals and their wives.

Analysts have suggested the move to Nay Pyi Taw, which means ''Royal City'', is a bid by Than Shwe to walk in the footsteps of Burmese kings who liked to build a new capital every time they proclaimed a new dynasty.

''It is part of their attempt to make their jungle capital competitive with big cities like Yangon and Mandalay,'' one retired government official said.

The generals argue the site, midway between Yangon and the second city of Mandalay, will work better as a national capital of the Southeast Asian country, under military rule since 1962.

The replica will be 325 feet high, one foot lower than the original Shwedagon, built more than 2,500 years ago in what is now the heart of the colonial capital.

The new pagoda may offer some solace to the estimated 10,000 government workers forced to leave friends and family in Yangon.

''I hope the new pagoda becomes an important place to worship like Shwedagon. Only then will those who had to move to Nay Pyi Taw be able to bury their loneliness and homesickness,'' the retired official said.

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